Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship of regulatory foci (promotion focus and prevention focus) to expatriate adjustments (general, interaction, and work adjustments) and explore whether mentoring functions (psychosocial support, role modeling, and career development) moderate the aforementioned relationship.
Design/methodology/approach
Using 141 questionnaired primary data (response rate 32.25 percent) gathered from at least six months experienced expatiates of multinational companies in six industries, this study adopts regression method to examine the moderating effect.
Findings
This study found that promotion focus was positively related to the interaction and work adjustment, respectively; prevention focus was positively related to the general, interaction, and work adjustment, respectively. Psychosocial support function moderates the relationship between promotion focus and general adjustment. Career development function moderates the relationships between promotion/prevention foci and work adjustment.
Originality/value
According to the interactionism perspective, behavior is a result of the interaction between personality and situational influences, has a long history in social and personality psychology. This study extends this perspective to the interactive effects of mentorship (situational factor) and expatriates’ regulatory foci (personality factor) on expatriate adjustment.
Adaptation of the theory of work adjustment to the graduates of the engineering cooperative education program at Iowa State University